E3 2015 – Corpse Party: Blood Drive Hands-On Preview: Deadly Sweet

June 19, 2015
Written by Cameron Teague

The Corpse Party series of games have come a long way since it’s original release using the RPG Maker software back in 1996. The series has spawned four manga series and two OVA’s since then, growing into a pretty big deal in Japan and making a few appearances on the PSP and now the PlayStation Vita with Corpse Party: Blood Drive.

Corpse Party: Blood Drive takes place two months after the events in Book of Shadows. The representative told me that newcomers would easily be able to step into Blood Drive without having played the last two. The game will feature 11 story chapters and eight extra chapters that serve as short stories to give you deeper insight into the characters.

Fuck Going Into a Dark Room

In the game, you are tasked with trying to rescue all of your friends who have been trapped inside this school. Along the way, you must make sure any evil spirits that are wandering the hallway doesn’t catch you. This time around, the game will feature dynamic lighting with the use of a flashlight that runs on batteries. While you are not able to attack spirits, you are able to run and hide from them. Just make sure that when you hide, they don’t see where, because they will get you.

A first for the series is the fact that you can now run. This is a huge perk when trying to make your way through the level or run from a spirit. However, you can only run in short spurts before you start to get really tired and slow down. Running can also cause a problem because of all the obstacles that you face; from holes in the ground to glass that will hurt you.

It’s Getting Dark in Here

One of the things you will have to pay attention to is the “Darkening System.” With this, the more scared your character becomes, the more scary things will start to happen to your party. There is also no visible health bar, requiring you to get into the menu to check out how low on health you are, which helps add to the tension.

What really works about Corpse Party: Blood Drive is the fact that you have this extremely dark and scary setting, but then you have these really adorable and somewhat out of place characters. Speaking of characters, there are 10+ playable characters, and to further add to the replay value,some chapters in the game have multiple endings that you can return to at anytime to gain another ending.

Corpse Party: Blood Drive is set to release on October 13th for the PlayStation Vita. Stay tuned in the future for more coverage on this promising Vita title.